VES Trip in Africa

 Sunday, June 18 th The Masai Mara We left the Anglican Mission House early Friday morning leaving Haynes’ funny jokes, Jevin’s love for American sports, and Mama B’s incredible cooking, but it was time for the Masai Mara and the lions were calling!   So we packed up the vans and were on our way.   We arrived at the Masai Mara around 4:30 pm and went straight to the park for our first game drive. You could say it was a successful night seeing four of the “Big Five” within 45 min…buffalo, lion, rhino, and elephant as well as about 8,000 zebras!   Finally, the night was topped off with an incredible dinner, and then straight to bed as we had an early wakeup call the next morning at 6:15 am for a 6:30 am game drive…so with sheets thrown back, feet hitting the ground, and a sweatshirt or extra layer pulled on to keep us warm in the early morning chill, out the door we went as the Masai Mara was waiting for us again. The morning game drive started off with th...

Thursday, June 15, 2017                            Woods and I (Josh) started off the day waiting for Smith and Michael to walk back to school after our fantastic home stays. A home stay consisted of when VES students spent the night at the homes of Katakwa Secondary students. We were served bottomless cups of milk tea and endless biscuits (cookies) and butter sandwiches. We were then given a tour of the compound and the surrounding area. It quickly became apparent that all of the families of the students were closely related, and amazingly the grandmother of Smith and Michael’s host student was wearing an old VES t-shirt. Michael and I soon had met back up to climb a rock structure to get to a beautiful view of the mountains. When it started to get dark we both went back to our homes to eat dinner. We ate bananas, potatoes, kales (similar to colla...

Monday, June 12, 2017 Welcome to Kenya! Day 1 @ Katakwa Secondary School To start off our day just right we got an amazing breakfast provided by Mama Beatrice “B”, our house mom at the Elewana Mission House. We left the house and drove down a bumpy dirt road for about half an hour until we arrived at the Katakwa Secondary School. We were met by Principal Gregory and Deputy Principal Victor. After introductions, we were given a tour of the school. The standards of the buildings exceeded our expectations compared to the schools we visited in Uganda. The poverty was still visible in the campus but it wasn’t as obvious; the school seemed like a private school in Kenya. Once break for the students began, there was an assembly in the courtyard where the principal introduced the teachers at the school to us and we introduced ourselves. As classes resumed, we were served traditional Kenyan tea. There were two types of tea we had, a strong and milk. We were broken into groups a...

Saturday, June 10, 2017 River Raftin’- Nile Style! As the sun rises over the Nile, Mrs. Dabney touches her toes in yoga class, Smith and company take showers overlooking the longest river in the world, and Mr. Head joins the monkeys in a morning tree climb. Dr. Caprise takes his last sip of coffee with a native giraffe (Michael), and the team is ready to go.               After a short drive to the beginning of a 25km ride, the boys tie their headbands (recently bartered for 5,000 shillings) around their heads while the girls think of raft team names. The team applied extra sun screen and bug spray, and then entered the river. Unsure of what lies ahead, we ready ourselves for a bumpy ride. Notable wipe outs / events include Chip Bass tossed high in the air, Mrs. Anderson floating away downstream, the “Amazing Grace” boat with Sally and Hadley getting lodged on a rock before the waterfall, and Maddie and Ph...